Pashley26

Grippy grippy snappy snappy.

Slicks?

I'm still running through footage from yesterday. I cobbled this together for a laugh.

Come to one with Prawn and I some time, even if you don't drive we've got lots of friends who would passenger you and take you out on track all day.

£209 for the day, open pit lane. So you have a briefing, go to the pits and stay on track until you want to get off, then when you want to get back in again you just drive down the pits, wait until a break in traffic and the Marshall will wave you on. I never waited more than 20 seconds to get on track, and did 7 or 8 10-15 minute stints. Technically speaking you could drive solid from 9:30 to 12:30 and 1:30 to 4 without stopping. If you were retarded. I did just south of 100 miles on track, Prawn did almost 240. There were two 182 cup's there today, identical. I didn't take too much notice but they got out the way when prompted, didn't crash and seemed to be going very well indeed. There was an odd mix today, almost standard MX5's with slicks, cages and buckets. Then two 8V Mk2 Golf GTI track cars and two Clio RS's seemed to group together as similar cars. Then a load of 1.8t/16vt Mk2 Golf race cars. Them there was Pierre and I in our track day ready road cars. Then everything else was mental spec, Prawns car, K20 Elise's and Exiges, 996 Turbo's running stage 2, GT2 Clubsports and new GT3's, loads of E46 CSL's running slicks, a billion E36 M3's built to sill spec. It was a very eclectic mix, but not much "every day" stuff. The two Clio 182's were the only cars that that didn't have track modifications to them. Hollywood for me was just an exercise of unwinding the steering input I had from Redgate as slowly as possible whilst still feeding myself to the outside of the entrance to Craners. Nige (famous Mk2 Golf driver) enjoys putting his wheels over the curbs there and hooking up on the clay on the inside of old hairpin, and as it has been a two event weekend it was really soiled in the run out of the old hairpin and the inside. So to be honest I didn't fancy risking it too much, it took my all day to take Craners flat at 100 and the same amount of time to stay on the throttle until the apex at the end of Schwantz/entrance to McLeans. I learned so much today, f**k me. What a day. I think I will be working at Oulton Park for the event next month if you are going, I may well have found myself helping with sign on and organisation so I should well be there.

I know! Bloody MX5's must be so quick in the corners given the two long straights, you must be next level fast through Redgate, Craner and the old hairpin. (can we even class Hollywood as a corner? It's just the exit of Redgate, it confused me all day?)

Some hoses with holes in them and a bit of red paint. It's not a T4 or anything, just a 2.0 turbo S40 that's running stage 2 hardware, +/-240bhp I'd say. Maybe a little more now the meth works. Apparently it handles quite well. - Not Volvo pictures. Prawn and I, and our friend Rich's mapped up 135i rocket ship. Only lapped .7 seconds faster than my fastest recorded time, and he recorded all day until he also blew a boost hose and only had 320bhp. Hilariously fast car in a straight line.

Cracking day. Went to Donington, fell in love with the circuit, did some times I was really happy with and learned a lot about the S3. Nothing went wrong other than a small mystery oil leak which is a full catch can and regular boiling of my brake fluid after 5/6 laps. But being an open pit I just came in, parked it up, blagged a passenger lap and came back half an hour later. Improved hugely which is what I am most happy about. My first laps were very restricted in terms of my track usage, not really getting the car up to speeds where you could make the tires work, not really braking in the right manner to set you up for the next corner, and I needed to really get to grips with the new suspension geometry and the way the S was going to respond. It was all a bit amateur. It needs more negative camber, but otherwise I am really happy with the car now. Until they boiled the brakes were phenomenal, and every passenger said the car felt amazing. Which was real praise, but the one that stood out most was Prawns dad. Because he is a loveable grumpy old man, and he has known me for a very long time and knew me when I drove like a hooligan with absolutely no idea what I was doing. Today was the first time I've taken him out as a passenger and he to be honest I was really nervous, because he always gives me such a hard time (usually deservedly) for being a gobby little shit. To my great surprise he was really impressed and felt very comfortable and when we got back he had a quiet word with Nick about the way my driving has improved. So for me that was absolute highlight if the day. The underlying theme of today is improvement. I would never have had the confidence to get to the point that I was boiling brake fluid, using the weight of the rear to turn in quicker etc etc etc. So basically I'm saying that as the car is improving and becoming more communicative it is nice to feel that I can improve with it and understand the changes. So I am happy with that I'm changing my brake fluid for ATE Blue on Thursday, have Prawns Eezeeeeebleed for that. I'm polyurethane filling my engine mounts over the next day or so, I'll fit those Thursday too. The day had only one hiccup for me, which I will only post about on here because it isn't courteous to mention it anywhere else...but I want to rant about it somewhere so I might as well do it here where nobody will read it and take offence/judge me. In no way did this even out a slight dampener on my day at all, I just want a rant. I was plagued by two dickhead novices in Mk2 Golf race cars who drove like total puddings. Constantly in my way, constantly brake checking me, constantly disobeying the standard practice of releasing faster cars, and driving two abreast through the curves and old hairpin, it seemed like every time I was on track these two thundercunts were there getting in my way. It transpires that multiple people had issue with these guys not pulling in and keeping them up. Thankfully they weren't part of the forum I like to be part of, they were from another group that tagged along. Apparently according to their posts on another forum they "weren't the fastest but put in 200 miles of solid track work and made it home in one piece." Which is more than can be said for one of my headlights and my windscreen which both require replacement because of being peppered by stones after being held up by them for almost an entire lap, then both of them entering old hairpin two abreast and exceeding track limits causing multiple stones, pieces of clay and debris to shoot at my car, despite my best efforts not to be forceful I had been flashing them for two corners and the entire pit straight to quite frankly...get the f**k out of my way. Unfortunately for me, Prawns dad was in the car during the episode which resulted in my windscreen (which now has a foot and a half crack and a half inch chip in it) being smashed, so it wasn't filmed. Their hugely unsafe track entry/pit lane exit was picked up on camera multiple times though. So here's a funny video to show my displeasure. http://youtu.be/np-gJfyZ-iU Lots of videos and pictures to follow, from what was a hugely enjoyable day! - I was using Harry's Lap Timer with a RAM windscreen mount up until about 2:30 when my friend who had lent me the mount needed it back, so I didn't really get much opportunity to film past then. Which annoyingly is when it all started to really come together for me. That said, here is my fastest lap of the morning session - http://youtu.be/1YuChDOENdk Here's me bleeding my brakes as quickly and as poorly as possible. Drippy. The motley crew the night before. Team Prawn Racing HQ for the day. French's car, previously AndyP's. The Red Baron. Which spent 95% of the day broken! but still getting more attention than Porsches and M3's in the pits, everyone loves it. Great car.

It's hard to say individually how the smaller bushes effect the drive of the car because I've done both at the same time. The car has a lot more steering feel, and is clearly sharper to respond when the wheel is turned. Levels of grip are much increased. A corner which in the dry was 40-45mph steady throttle and verging on understeer is now 50mph and no understeer. Maybe this is psychological, and just an increased confidence in the car but it certainly feels great. I don't find that the steering is snappy though, but I do find it is much easier to provoke oversteer now which is nice, it makes changing direction much quicker. I don't see how anybody would struggle to drive with this setup, as a daily it is fantastic. Yet to see what tire wear is going to be like mind you. Prawns car has this lovely feeling that going round a roundabout you can tug the wheel into the corner and it will give you more grip than the rear has and it steps it really smoothly and all you have to do to get out of it is decrease the front grip (more throttle, more steering angle) and it straightens out and gives a little understeer instead. Mine does this now. Which feels great with AWD.

I failed a filmed mystery shop once because a 1:30 appointment turned up at 2:45 and greeted me with "Oh hi, I'm your 1:30 appointment." Fair enough, blokes late, make him a hot drink, get him sat comfortaby and explain you're busy. So that's exactly what I did. Obviously because he's a mystery shop he tries testing me and complains that he wants me to see him right away and let him go out for an unaccompanied test drive if I'm too busy, even though I've explained to him I'm already with a customer when he just walked up to me and announced himself to me. So I said "Yeah, good for you. I guess you wouldn't turn up to the dentist an hour and 15 minutes late and demand to be seen right away would you? Then when he tells you that you'll have to wait you start pulling your teeth out in the waiting room because you couldn't wait your turn." I was 18 at the time and much more of a cock than I am now, considerably more in fact. But yes, poor time keeping is certainly one of my absolute pet hates. Another is when a girl you're seeing is on her phone constantly when you're with her, but takes a lifetime to reply when you're not.

I posted this on Audi Sport, so it's just a copy and paste. But there's loads of people on here with 8L chassis cars who can benefit. I know I always say my car is the best car in the world ever and Rich hates it, but remember 99% of my posts are copied from Audi-Sport where my car really actually is the best car in the world that isn't Prawns. And genuinely. This modification is outstanding in the way it has transformed the car. - Serious post guys. I buy things for the car, I fit them, I say they're great and that's that. They are usually small things which add the the package and almost seamlessly just make the car nicer in a few situations. Recently I have done some modifications to the car which have altered the way it feels entirely, biggest of which is the seats and harnesses. Obviously that isn't for everyone, so I haven't made a huge deal about how much I love the way they have transformed the car, because that's totally my own opinion and can't be shared across the board. Today's modification however, oh my. So the other day that Cookbots bloke posted up a thread about his parts, said they were great and blah blah blah. I warned him that he wasn't a sponsor, the thread would be removed and that was about it. Thread got removed, nobody other than me commented. No harm done. I thought to myself, "sod it. I'm ordering a set, and I'll have the caster corrective bushes to go with them." I can't stress enough here, no deal was done, no promise to write up reviews or discounts for saying anything about my thoughts. I bought them straight off the blokes website and paid in full. What they are is a sleeve which reduces the 45mm rubber lower arm bushing to a 30mm polyurethane bushing or the factory bushing, through means of a CNC'd metal sleeve - Like so Originally TT's and the like came with a 30mm bushing. But after numerous motoring journalists crashed their TT's and complained that the steering was too direct and responsive VAG changed the design to allow a softer and more forgiving steering wheel which leaned much more towards inducing understeer at a lower speed before grip levels were exceeded with the 30mm bushings. The standard geometry is apparently very good in terms of where things are, it's just the bushings and play VAG introduced to give the luxury feel which seem to let it down. Post came today... I was so excited to open them! I'm not going to bang on about the quality of them or the aesthetics, because nobody gives a f**k and they're going to end up pressed into a cavity nobody is ever going to look at. What a pig to fit though. Removing the lower arms, 20 minutes. Notice the new DS3000's in the callipers from Bill. Fantastic price, quick delivery and awesome pads. Pressing out the old bushes....Got the oxy out in the end. Refinishing the arms and deburring them, pressing the new bushes in and fitting up the new ball joints took about two hours in all fairness. Removing the old 45mm bush these "cookbot" sleeves replace was a f**king nightmare. These ones - Notice the splits, cracks and rubbisness of the old bushes. When I ordered these I also ordered a Superpro caster adjustment bush. At this point, before I tell everybody how fantastic these are I would just like to pass a comment. Mainly because this guy has already been shut down once, and had his thread deleted. He was also previously banned from Audi-Sport for reasons I don't know... We're allowed to was lyrical about Defcons, and we're allowed to suggest people go and buy 034 subframe bushes from Hektor. And they're not sponsors. Before I wrote this I checked every single forum sponsors online shop and not one of them sell a bush like this for the lower arms. So I don't think this is treading on anyone's toes. Seriously amazing bit of kit! The turn in and increased camber during cornering is truly transformational, the car now feels as I would expect Audi to have made an S car to handle. The front now turns quicker than the back, and the feedback through the wheel is great. You can feel the road changes, and you can feel the limits between grip and understeer much clearer. It's rare that a modification changes the way a car feels, and it's rare that something like is simply a £150 and a couple of hours labour. I haven't dropped any links or anything stupid like that, you're still going to have to search for them. But compared to the price of Defcons these things are REALLY good. I also know lots of other people run these sorts of bushes and increased caster setups, but I've not seen a proper review and post like this saying how good they really are. I cannot wait to really get to grips with the new limits of the car on track on Monday

Oh uprated DV's...why do you exist when the factory 1.8t one does the job perfectly well for 600bhp RUF's... Your central locking pump pipe is split somewhere between the pipe and the drivers door.

I may be able to get a small discount if booked through here - http://circuit-days.co.uk/event_info.asp?id=525

Fastest colour though.

You fancy booking it as well by any chance? A friend of mine (with an MX5 actually!) does probably every single track day in the world and she keeps telling me to stop being a fag and book it. The 4 hours each way drive scares me though.

I'm always like this when I talk about cars. We buy any car it Luke, make it happen. I am currently being pressured into doing Oulton Park on the 21st of November.

Safety. A little bit of understeer gives you a nice nudge before things get beyond your skill limit. Maybe I shouldn't fit these bushes...

Try not lifting off, you should get some understeer then.

You're not driving fast enough then. Mine used to understeer left right and centre, and that was on half decent tires with a RARB (I know I know...)

Bye bye understeer.

Could you imagine it. There's a Polish TV show where they put like 6 people in a room and there's a box fixed to the floor. The person who's stood on the box at the end of 5 minutes (or something stupid) wins 10,000 cabbages (or whatever they buy things with in Poland). I imagine it would be like that. I'll find you a video.

£1500 would get you a cracking week in Budapest.

If they don't have confidence to say they don't want to drive then they don't deserve driving licenses. Simples in my eyes.

What George said. (About the 30 second mark, you're pretty f**king good if you can go sub 30 on your first try at Curborough. It should be every bodies benchmark time. ) Curby is fantastic, here have a video - And here's how to do it properly... And here's what it looks like from outside.